


Toxiphobia

by Muffinworry



Category: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (Short Film)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 19:02:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3989209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muffinworry/pseuds/Muffinworry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paige likes to experiment with poisons. Sometimes it doesn't go as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toxiphobia

**Author's Note:**

> Another Storytime Challenge, this time for the theme "phobia."

***

Paige expected to have a lot of fun as a human (or nearly human), and she does. What she hadn’t expected was the demands her body would make on her. It’s always hungry or thirsty or tired. Amazing, really, how humans ever get anything done.

The first time she tastes food, she’s shocked. It’s astonishing to her, that fuel can be an art form in its own right. It takes her a while to realize that to them, food is other things too: family, childhood, memories, celebrations. Guilt. Shame. Temptation. Love. Everything unfamiliar and fascinating.

Of course, it doesn’t take her long to find its harmful side. She takes a keen interest in the effects of certain popular and destructive chemicals: caffeine, nicotine, alcohol.

Tony develops a taste for the shock of dark, bitter coffee and smoky amber scotch that smells better than it tastes. Paige finds herself falling for anything sweet: lush ripe fruit, cookies, caramel. The first time she tastes chocolate, she stands stock still with her eyes closed and her fingers in her mouth, until Tony impatiently runs her through with his sword.

For revenge, she realizes she needs a reliable way to take him down, to compensate for his advantages of height and strength. Poison becomes her warning shot, an opening salvo in their ongoing battle.

Paige’s favourite toxins are the ones that incapacitate without killing. Her garden comes in handy – so many possibilities, just waiting to be tried. Luckily she has an unwilling test subject.

She begins to experiment.

***

Tony has her backed against the wall, when it hits him with the sort of perfect timing that he really ought to appreciate more. The hands around her throat loosen, and he gasps, dropping to his knees in front of her. She kicks him to the ground while he shivers and groans. Convulsing at her feet, white froth at the corners of his mouth, he glares up at her helplessly while she bends over him. He chokes out a fraction of a curse before she wraps his own tie around his neck.

***

The next time is even better. They’re just beginning a lesson with the help of their three roommates, and he’s lecturing her about the importance of getting her knots good and tight. She rolls her eyes – he of all people should know that she can tie an unbreakable knot. When Robin dies too early, and Tony is busy reviving him, she seizes her opportunity. Tony makes the mistake of holding out his bare hand for a tool, and she passes him the pliers carefully.

Unfortunately for Robin, it takes another fifteen minutes for the poison she’d painted onto the pliers’ handles to take full effect. Tony is in the middle of snipping off Robin’s last finger, when he coughs and raises a hand to his face. He stares at the trickle of blood from his nose, then turns to her furiously.

“I will fucking break your neck-” he gets out, before sliding in a heap to the floor in front of their wide-eyed roommates.

She smiles and gives an encouraging little wave as she watches him twist in agony, shaking violently and clawing at his throat. He’s bleeding from the eyes and ears now too. Really, the variety of toxins she can lay her hands on is astounding.

As he slips into unconsciousness, then death, she turns back to their terrified friends. “Wasn’t that fun?” she chirps brightly. She wipes off the pliers carefully on her skirt, then turns back to Robin. 

“Where were we, dear?”

***

It becomes a running challenge to tamper with his morning coffee. He expects it, goes to increasingly elaborate lengths to hide it from her. Her personal best is poisoning the dish soap. The next time, though, he fakes a convincing spasm and falls to the floor, only to roll over and stab her when she gets close. They call it a draw.

***

Poisons are tricky and unpredictable. It’s why she loves them, and why he almost never uses them. Even with careful research, it takes her a long time to get each dosage right. More than once, she's tiptoed up to his room, handcuffs and knives at the ready, only to find him sprawled across his bed, already dead. Waste of a turn.

Sometimes, it just doesn’t work. He’s not unintelligent, after all.

Sometimes, she gets it wrong.

***

Boots echo down the corridor as he gets closer.

“Dearest!” he calls. “Angel! Come out. I just want to talk.”

She rolls her eyes at that, and flattens her back to the wall. Her grip on the knife tightens.

“What exactly was it this time, love?” he continues, his footsteps pacing around as he searches. “Arsenic? Cyanide?”

Paige slowly puts her head around the corner of the hallway. His back is to her. The tip of his sword scrapes lightly across the ground. In his other hand, he’s swirling a wineglass.

“I’m not even angry. Honestly, love. Just a little disappointed that you were so obvious. And that you ruined this vintage. Do you know what a good year for Bordeaux that was? Next time, do you think you can remember to drug Harry’s box wine instead? You might actually improve it.”

One step, she thinks. It was unfortunate that he hadn’t drunk the wine, but she can still salvage this. She can still win. Let the fucking liar take one more step…

Tony pivots soundlessly and begins walking in Paige’s direction. She looks down and swears under her breath. Her shadow is clearly visible on the ground. She takes a step back. He sets the glass down on a shelf and turns the corner, sword raised.

She aims low, throwing herself down and slashing at his legs. He yells in pain, and she ducks and rolls as the sword comes whistling down past her head. Paige rises to her knees and stabs at him again. She hears fabric tear, but he trips backwards out of her reach.

Tony staggers backwards, his back hitting the wall. Paige flies at him and wraps her hands around his neck. They crash into each other hard enough that he drops his sword. He curses, and reaches for her.

Paige snaps her teeth at him as his hands fist in her hair. They’re face to face now, glaring at each other. Strands of her hair whip around her face and coil around his neck, pulling him closer. He makes a choking noise as she tightens her grip. Tony struggles to free himself, but they’re tangled together.

Reaching blindly, his hand finds the wine glass. Paige snarls in pain as he forces her to her knees, and for a moment her grip on his neck loosens. She opens her mouth to yell an insult at him, and he wrenches her head back savagely, and pours the wine down her throat. The sour liquid makes her cough and thrash furiously. She feels her legs kicked out from under her. Tony pushes her down and she writhes on the ground, pinned. Her nails tear bloody gouges along his arms as he throws the empty glass down. One white-gloved hand seizes her wrists; the other clamps down over her mouth until she’s forced to swallow the wine. They stay pressed together for a long moment.

When her struggling weakens, he takes his red-stained glove away from her mouth. Drops of his blood fall on her face as she gasps for breath. She looks up at him dazedly, her pupils huge and black.

“Bastard. You fucking bastard,” she snarls through clenched teeth.

“Oh, well done, darling!” He’s panting, one hand pressed to his bleeding leg, but that fucking smirk is back. “You’re hardly even slurring yet. I am proud of you. Now, let’s find out what was in that glass.”

“I’m going to break you,” she chokes out. She feels weak and dizzy. Her neck is stiff; it’s hard to talk. “You’ll scream…beg me…end it.”

“It’s good to have dreams,” he agrees, sitting up and watching her intently.

A violent shudder runs through her, then another. Her shaking hands twist themselves into claws; her gaze stays fixed on him as her neck muscles tighten. Again a spasm runs through her.

“Could it be? Yes? Oh, it seems we have a winner. Yes, it’s definitely strychnine!” Tony leans down, drinking in the sight of Paige trying to move. Soon, she knows, she’ll be struggling to breathe. Paige’s lips pull back into a rictus.

“I couldn’t agree with you more, love,” he tells her smugly. “These newfangled drugs have their uses, but give me the good old-fashioned classics any day.”

The convulsions are coming faster and stronger now. Paige feels her back arching under the terrible pressure of the seizures. Her body is twisting, spasming into a contorted wheel. Her feet strain under her as her neck jerks back, her head moving closer to her heels with each shudder. Tony smiles and holds her gaze. She tries to look away from him, but even her eyes won’t obey her. Her heart is beating wildly, her throat tightening as her airway slowly closes.

It takes her a long time to die. Desperately weak by now, she feels herself pulled into ever-stronger convulsions. Her whole body jerks and thrashes; her back arches wildly off the ground, seizing, tight as a bow. Finally, her breath rattles in her throat and she collapses to the ground, her muscles rigid in death.

***

When they wake up from dying, there’s usually a brief moment (he would say exactly four and a half seconds) of utter disorientation.

It’s cold and dark when Paige opens her eyes. She shivers. Morning is still a long way off; icy rain is lashing the windows. She drags herself out from under the dense bushes where he’d dropped her body, and limps up the garden path. Cute. He’d left her in the middle of her wolfsbane and monkshood plants. She can take a hint. She’s stiff, aching with cold and wet through.

The house is silent. Paige manages to crawl upstairs, where she pulls on pajamas, rubs her hair with a towel, and pads down the hall. Oh, he’s going to pay for this.

She opens the door quietly, scoots under the covers, and jams her freezing bare feet up against his back. There’s a muffled yelp, and she grins in the darkness.

“Told you you’d beg me for mercy,” she murmurs.

“Shhh,” he groans. “Too early.”

“I keep my promises, you know.”

He rolls over towards her and she nestles into his warmth. His arm snakes around her waist.

“Mercy,” he breathes against her neck.

She hums in contentment and her eyes droop closed. He might have found the wine, but he missed the drain cleaner she’d mixed into the sugar bowl. She’ll have to be up early to watch him drink his coffee. It’s always good to have a back-up plan.

Paige smiles in her sleep.


End file.
